Dreamer of Briarfell: A Retelling of Sleeping Beauty (Fairytales of Folkshore Book 7)

by Lucy Tempest

  Robin blinked. “The what?”

  “The part of the Pumpkin Path where the eyes in the poplar trunks open,” Agnë said. “They usually watch travelers, but also mess with them at times. I’ve seen them once when I accompanied my brother to Queen Rowena’s manor, while he courted her daughter.”

  Keenan jumped back on his reindeer, and steered Agnë’s horse off the Path. “If they didn’t mess with you before, I elect you to find the dullahan’s head with me, before it kills one or all of you. If it feels its head is in danger, it will have to come after it.”

  A loud snap blasted through the woods ahead, and Jon hit the ground with a shout of agony, his broken spear embedded in his shoulder.

  Agnë screamed for him, but Keenan dragged her horse away, circumventing the dullahan, shouting back at us, “Keep it occupied until we find its head! And don’t let it touch Fairuza!”

  Will and Robin rushed to defend their fallen friend, but it wasn’t interested in him anymore, and knives or even magic arrows did nothing to deter it from advancing. On me.

  Robin launched himself at it, trying to unseat it from its horse, yelling desperately at me, “Turn back!”

  “I can’t! I’ll die anyway!”

  “Then follow the others around it! We can’t hold it back for long!”

  I didn’t want to leave them. This thing had already tossed the strongest of us aside like a broken doll. It might do far worse to Will, to Robin…

  But until Keenan managed to lure it away, there was nothing I could do but distract them. I’d only make Robin take deadly risks to protect me.

  Urging Amabel off the Path, we galloped aimlessly through the woods.

  I kept trying to listen for the others through the racket her hooves made over the dead leaves covering the ground, furiously praying that Keenan and Agnë had found the creature’s head.

  Just when I thought I heard their voices, the demonic neigh of the dullahan’s horse ripped through the cold air.

  It was coming after me.

  But if it was, what had it done to my friends?

  I tried to turn around, but Amabel only ran faster, crossing a silvery stream as she hurtled in the direction of Keenan’s and Agnë’s voices.

  The whip cracked behind me, but I didn’t dare look back. Amabel whinnied desperately as she leaped over a fallen log—but she didn’t land.

  Time seemed to slow down, keeping us in a mid-air arc as black eyes covering the pale poplar trunks all around us opened.

  Colors reversed, the trees becoming black as they started to shiver and moan, and the eyes turned pale yellow with black, slit pupils. They watched us unblinkingly as we sailed through the air, the captives of some dark magic, and the dullahan closed in on us. I screamed and even my voice distorted to a deep, horrifying parody.

  This land was the stuff of nightmares!

  Just as I could almost feel the dullahan’s whip tear through my dissipating form, the eyes blinked en masse, and we were released from the stasis, landing hard on the ground.

  Not wasting a second, we exploded ahead, and in the distance, I saw Keenan’s silhouette lifting a severed head by the hair. He’d found the dullahan’s head!

  My relief was short-lived as it cracked its whip again, hitting Amabel this time. An agonized whinny tore from her as she leaped, landing near Keenan, before turning to face the dullahan.

  Keenan jumped between us, swinging the head over his own. “You dropped this?”

  Forgetting me for now, the dullahan charged after Keenan, only for him to catapult its head away. It urged its horse to leap, but an arrow beat it to its own head, piercing it in one closed eye mid-flight, sending it hurtling back.

  Screeches tore the very air around us as it turned to lash out at Robin.

  No!

  With a shrill cry, I urged Amabel forward, and she exploded into a flying leap, her full momentum behind her horn as she jammed it through the horseman’s chest.

  She snapped her head up, tearing the body off the demonic horse and into the air, with her horn impaling it, jutting out of its back.

  The shrieks around us rose to a bone-shearing crescendo, making the trees shake like they were in a hurricane.

  As Amabel tossed her head down, dislodging her horn, the skeletal horse collapsed into a heap of bones. But as the dullahan fell limply to the ground, it made one last dying grasp for me.

  I heard Robin’s booming shout as I felt myself being pulled out from the world, the last sound in my ears his voice frantically calling my name.

  The eyes of the trees watched me as I fell into the darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I didn’t know how long I plummeted. But all the way, as I fell into nothingness, all I could think of was Robin.

  At some point, the darkness parted, like clouds over the moon. This time there were no rivers or fields. I was in a dim hallway with dark, hewn, gem-studded walls, each faceted stone winking like a star in the subdued illumination.

  I was starting to breathe in relief, thinking I wasn’t back in the Underworld, when I saw the Horned God. And he wasn’t alone. A three-headed woman was looming over him.

  Then he pivoted and walked away from her. In my direction.

  Looking around desperately, I phased into a column, exited behind it as the Horned God approached, thankfully with the woman trailing him and commanding his attention as all her heads continued talking urgently. His proximity still had a slew of disturbing sensations crashing into me like a breaker, leaving me cold and shaking.

  Once they passed, against my better judgment, I followed them, hoping to find a way out of here. The stories about the living venturing into the Underworld always said there was a way in, and a way out.

  Maybe I could also find the river where I’d found Ariane. I might be able to do something for her, even if she’d said she couldn’t come with me. I might be here to stay myself this time, but I had to try.

  Now I trailed the nightmarish creatures, grateful that I didn’t have any footfalls, my insides turning inside out at their closeness. Besides the sheer power and menace emanating from them, their appearance shared the—wrongness of the headless horseman. A human form with one truly disturbing deviation. No head, three heads, or a dead animal’s head.

  Then I was close enough to hear what they were saying.

  “But can’t you go up to investigate?” the three mouths of the woman spoke at once, creating an eerie chorus.

  “Certainly,” the Horned God rumbled, his voice like distant thunder, making my knees knock together with terror. “I’ll pop to the surface and question the first unsuspecting human about his whereabouts.”

  “Could any of his…natural children have banded together to confront him?” said the left head, before the others alternated with a question each as she followed him around a corner. “Could they have done something to him? Is it even possible?”

  The Horned God didn’t answer as they crossed into a cavern of gigantic proportions. An incandescent blue river ran through its middle, with the ghosts of people in ancient clothes wandering along. Some had more modern attire, resembling Campanian farmers. I followed them until they exited into an open space that had a sky above. How was there a sky in the Underworld?

  I soon forgot this inexplicable occurrence as they led me into an orchard teeming with silvery trees that stood like a uniformed army, heavy with ruby-red fruit that reminded me of pomegranates.

  The Horned God snatched a large one off a branch, snapped it in half with such effortlessness, I wondered if he harvested souls by snapping necks and ending lives himself. He bared the garnet-like seeds that shimmered within, and its juice flowed out like blood over his pale hand.

  One of his hounds approached him, gleaming eyes as red, and he offered it the fruit. The hound’s jaws gaped, and it wolfed it down in one bite.

  When the Horned God spoke again, his voice in this open space was like a raging sea, almost making me drop to my knees. “Something that had
never happened before is happening in the living world, and in the divine realm. His disappearance is just a symptom of a much more insidious and widespread disease that could bring both toppling down.”

  “But surely the other gods must know something?” the three-headed woman said, sounding more agitated. “And is the death rate of potential heroes another symptom?”

  The Horned God gave a derisive snort that I felt could scrape flesh from bone. “Heroes? So having divine blood automatically makes someone worthy of adulation and song? I think not.”

  “The same can be said for the sons of kings,” the left head said. “Their blue blood automatically puts them above the rest. It’s no wonder many royal lineages claim descent from one god or another, to add divine right to their entitlements.”

  “Throughout history, how many pivotal figures were the spoiled spawn of kings?” He tilted his macabre head at all of hers, dancing his fingertips over the handle of his silver bident. “Being born with a title doesn’t mean anything. It’s what you do with the one you achieve.”

  “And you would know all about that,” the middle head said with a mirthless huff. “Has anyone caught on to you yet?”

  “That depends on what our eavesdropper has to say.”

  And he looked directly at me.

  I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t even think with the Horned God pinning me with his eyeless stare.

  He moved towards me, purple light shining within the endless depths of his sockets, a pale, elegant hand reaching out. I stumbled back, shaking, and mumbling nonsensical prayers and pleas, begging him to spare me.

  It wasn’t my time to die. It wasn’t. I had to leave. Had to return to Robin—had to see him, tell him…

  A heaving gasp tore out of me as the Horned God almost touched me,—then I was sucked out of the Underworld again.

  Chapter Thirty

  Next breath, I found myself back within proximity of my friends.

  We were, once again, in a vastly different place.

  The floor seemed to be made of crystal, as did the walls and the staircase near the hall we stood in, with a lot of broken mirrors all around.

  I’d seen this place before, in those first out-of-body visions.

  Robin stood by an ajar double door with Will, Meira, and a tall, blond man with pointed ears and a beard. Meira was crying as if her world was ending. Will held her close, trying to comfort her.

  “What happened?” I croaked, voice wavering with the reverberating shock of my hair-raising encounter and narrow escape.

  Meira swung around with a hiccup, let out a cry of anguish as she rushed towards me, arms held out. She stopped before she went through me, swayed unsteadily, and I saw she’d been crying for a while now. She cried harder now.

  “What happened?” I asked again. “Where is Agnë? How is Jon?”

  “Jon is being treated by the court healer, and Agnë’s with him.” Robin approached, cautiously, like he would a deer who would scamper off at the first movement. “Did you go to the—same place again? You really scared me—all of us.”

  It warmed my frozen heart, how worried he sounded. But he looked more than worried. He looked horrified. I raised my hand to him, and found it totally gone, along with my entire arm.

  A desperate moan escaped me. I was deteriorating too rapidly.

  “Did you find the Winter King?” I asked dully when I could speak again.

  “The king is visiting a nearby city,” said the bearded fairy, Agnë’s brother by the looks of him. “He is due to return soon.”

  Meira let out a howl of a wounded animal. “We were too late. He’s engaged! And his curse was broken by the girl he’s marrying. We were just a few days too late! The days we wasted in the Summer Court!”

  I just stared at her, too worn out to even care that I’d lost my last chance of being saved. I’d somehow known it would be like this.

  I felt the intensity of Robin’s concern singeing me, and raised my eyes to his. I lost myself in the planes of his face, calming myself by counting his freckles. I could trace constellations on them if I could just reach out and touch him.

  “I’m so sorry,” he whispered hoarsely. “I really thought this would be it, that you would be free.”

  Strangely unmoved by the dire reality I was mired in, I smiled at him and Meira placatingly. My arm was missing and oblivion was staring me in the face. Soon my whole body would join my arm and I would cease to exist. I would return to the Underworld, for good this time. But I didn’t want them to feel bad about it. They’d done enough, suffered enough, on my behalf.

  Agnë emerged from the room beyond, and rushed to my side, blue eyes swollen and reddened, lips quivering with her sobs. “I really thought King Yulian would be the one for you. I’m so sorry—so sorry we failed you.”

  “What about Keenan?” asked Agnë’s brother of no one in particular, before he turned to me. “I am Lord Simeon, Your Highness, the son-in-law of the Queen of Autumn. She has a son who is unmarried.”

  So that was how Keenan was half-fairy, and had a human father. Now I remembered that two human brothers had married two royal fairies, one couple having Bonnie. The other had Keenan.

  I shook my head at Lord Simeon. “I’ve met Keenan. He is unavailable.”

  That surprised Simeon into a baffled splutter. “When did that happen?”

  “You met him?” Robin exclaimed. “You mean…?”

  I nodded. “Alan is Keenan, evidently the Prince of Autumn.”

  The others took a moment to digest the revelation.

  Then Will suddenly shouted, “There has to be something else we can do! We didn’t come all this way for nothing!”

  “You brought us all this way for your sister,” Meira said, looking like the fire inside her had been put out.

  “And for Fairuza,” added Robin indignantly, before turning to Simeon. “You’re the expert here, Lord Simeon, and you know how grave our situation is, seeing as your king was cursed as well. There has to be some other option.”

  Agnë clung to her brother’s arm, pleading, “Please, Simeon, I am her fairy godmother, I can’t fail her. Think of something!”

  Simeon seemed to wrack his mind, before he faced me again with a heavy sigh. “The last person in this land who could be the one you’re looking for, isn’t easy to find, not to mention, dangerous. He is—”

  A powerful whoosh interrupted him, and dragged our attention to the nearest balcony doors. They opened to reveal a sleigh dragged by reindeer. It was a testament to my numbness that I didn’t blink at the fact that they were flying.

  A green-skinned, fiery-haired girl disembarked first, hopping down into the balcony, followed by a very tall fairy man with long, silver-blond hair.

  They were the couple from my vision.

  As I wondered if what I’d seen pertained to their past or future, they entered the room. Both Agnë and Meira dropped into deep curtsies.

  The Winter King and his bride-to-be greeted us with confused expressions, before he waved for my godmothers to rise.

  King Yulian nodded at us in general salute, before he looked at Agnë. “Agnessa, good to see you again. Where have you been all this time?”

  Agnë, Simeon, and Meira launched into explanations.

  After a while, the king raised his hand to silence them, frowning at me. “So you are a wraith?”

  “I don’t know what I am at the moment,” I said miserably.

  “I’ve been there, very recently,” said his green-skinned betrothed. She was scrutinizing me, like she recognized me from somewhere. “Are you Fairuza, by any chance?”

  Just when I thought I couldn’t be surprised anymore.

  I stared at her, wondering if she was another of Bonnie’s fairy relatives, Keenan’s sister perhaps? Or was that one already married to Simeon?

  I nodded. “Yes. How do you know me?”

  “I met your brother. I was friends with Bonnie. I’m Ornella, but call me Ella.” Her smile was nice enough, but I sensed
some bitterness in its tightness. “How are they?”

  “They’re fine, at last. And engaged.”

  “Doesn’t anyone else find this a little weird?” asked Will. “How everyone seems to be related somehow? Or know each other through some degree of separation?”

  “As far as I know, the only thing linking us together is the Spring Queen.” Ella turned to me. “Has that miserable hag appeared to you yet?”

  “Ella, there’s no need to badmouth her,” Yulian chided.

  “I’ll say whatever’s on my mind, considering how long I couldn’t do so, because she didn’t do anything about it!”

  “Did she curse you, too?” Robin asked her.

  Ella rolled her eyes. “No, but she left me to toil and be tortured for years, and appeared to offer her help only if I was of use to her.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that we wouldn’t have met if it weren’t for her,” Yulian said.

  Ella pulled a face. “I think Keenan played a bigger role in our introduction.”

  So she was the girl Keenan had talked about? The one who’d been saved from her stepfamily?

  It stood to reason, for she was safe now, but didn’t seem fine yet.

  Yulian shook his head at her fondly, then addressed us again. “So I understand Princess Fairuza needs a king or a prince to break her curse?”

  “But I have run out of kings and princes,” I said, numbness deepening.

  Ella cocked her head at me. “Have you? The Spring Queen said something about wanting to see your curse undone, but she doesn’t get involved unless she can get something out of the situation. So it sounds like you have to do something to please her.” She nudged Yulian. “Doesn’t she have a nephew?”

  “That’s what I was about to tell them when you arrived,” said Simeon. “Her nephew and heir leads the Wild Hunt.”

  “He what?” Will shouted. “He’s the one who has my sister!”

  “Well, it looks like you have more than one reason to continue into Spring’s domain,” said Yulian. “Maybe your quest was all about finding the Wild Hunt, where Mr. Scarlett will find his sister, and Princess Fairuza will find her prince.”